Greetingz from new Tiger owner

[MtheTiger]

Greetingz to you all

My name is Markus and after being bikeless for some 15 yrs I decided it was about time to start riding (and restoring) again. I wanted a big & tall allroader with a healthy pricetag and a troublefree and maintenance friendly engine. I rented a Beemer R1200GS for a day and I must admit to say I liked it (this was before I knew a Steamer existed though  :oops: ). I was already in the market to buy one but the prices were outrageous, even for older bikes and also for parts and services. So, no Beemer for me, but what to buy? A Varadero perhaps....mmmm....not enough character and a bit dull. To make things worse, our police rides them over here in the Netherlands. Then a guy from work arrived one very fine day on a highly farkled steamer and I was sold completely.....now THIS is a bike, oh yeah...bring it on ! The next couple of weeks I started looking on the interweb for information about this bike and I stumbled upon your great forum which helped me to all the data and information I needed......thx a lot guys !!
I started to look for bikes and one day I stumbled upon the one that had to become mine: a Caspian blue '97 specimen from the first owner who had used it for vacations & trips all over Europe. It had a full Givi set on it, an all weather cover, BOS exhausts and Daytona cams. With 55k kms on the dial it ran well and sounded the business. Sadly no service history because he did much of it himself and he had a mechanic for the hard stuff, but it was maintained well enough to take the risk and buy it. Too bad he didn't have a garage so it stood outside for its entire life. Well, I don't have one either so I'm glad it is used to it.
So, the coming weeks I'm going to do the following:
- Valve clearances
- Brake overhaul
- Some farkles (Replacing bulbs with LED's and a better screen)
- Loose Kats if they're still in there
- Carb cleaning
- Replacing all rubber that's worn out
- Maybe the front tire and chain & sprockets if I can afford it

I plan to take it on a short vacation to Scotland 13 may so this is my deadline.

Since I don't have the valve tool Mustang sells I have to take off the cams for the valve job. Not 100% sure yet if I'm up to this. It sounds a bit daunting when I read what can go wrong.

For all those who managed the reading to this point here's a pic of the bike the day I bought it (....hope the link to image shack works):


Greetingz from the Netherlands to you all!
Markus

[Mustang]

Nice looking Tigger  I always wanted a Blue one .............but Black is the fastest color  

you may find that all the valves are in spec and won't have to touch it .
If you find any that are just a shade over or under the spec it is perfectly safe to leave them alone , usually you will find that the intakes are starting to close up the tolerance so when one statrs getting to be around .05mm it's really time to do something about it

pulling the cams is ok as long as you feel comfortable with it .
You need to take the chain tensioner out and when you reassemble make damn sure you put the cam caps back in their original positions , mark them well with paint pen . they are marked with a code from the factory also  but being redundant is not a bad thing . It matters greatly that they go back where they came from !

also make sure the timing disc is set so T1 is pointing at the ignition sensor and then the arrows on the cam wheels need to be intake pointing to 3 o'clock and exhaust pointing to 9 o'clock .the arrows need to be exactly pointing at each other , it's easy to be 1 tooth off on the chain


If you have to shim a lot of valves it is nice to pull the cams if you only need to do 1 or 2 shims using the valve tool makes the job a lot easier .

Welcome to the clan
Tigers will infect your soul   bwahhahaha

[iansoady]

Looks nice Markus.

Those front spokes look a bit rusty though - might be worth considering a wheel rebuild.

[John Stenhouse]

Welcome Markus, going to Scotland, you'll enjoy the roads up there, if your coming over via Dover call in on your way up and have a break and a coffee. Lovely Steamer, enjoy!

[MtheTiger]

@ Mustang: thx for the advice. When the weather finally   gets better I get the chance to do the valve check in my garden. Hopefully they're all in spec. If only a few are out I guess I'm gonna get your tool to make things easier...will let you know.

@Ian: Agree. This annoys me too. I think I will get the wheel respoked later this year with rvs spokes.

@John: I will take the nightferry from IJmuiden tot Newcastle upon Tyne so it's about a one hour drive to Scotland. Thx for the offer though!

[aeronca]

alway's nice seeing another blue steamer, welcome aboard 8)

[Sin_Tiger]

Glad to see another Steamer in the fold, especially a Blue one, I hope you get good weather to enjoy Scotland, wish I could :( . Take care on the roads, lots of pot holes after the hard winter.

If I can offer some advice, tie up the speedo cable, mine unscrewed itself and the end ground itself to nothing on the road before I noticed the sparks  :roll: